So I had/ have this friend (better acquaintances) of mine and ofcourse we aren't that close and have never been. She was like one of those students, with big wide mouth making fun of teachers and particularly of everyone. Who would say half way through the sessions that she hasn't even made the notebooks yet and thought that not even flipping through pages of the book, not even before a few hours of the exams was - Cool. She probably had some kind of teleporting gift, you'd find her sitting at the back bench with her laughter echoing and then in a blink she'd be flirting with her girlfriends near the water cooler and that isn't enough because even if you would be filling your bottle next to her, without even eavesdropping you'd know she had chicken nuggets last night and how her boy friend thinks 'how hot she is' and you'd see her strolling, making her way past through basketball boys in the playground and even if the teacher would be just a few inches away from the door, you'll find her back shuffling in her seat pretending she had not even stepped outside of the class, roaming and planning her next class bunk. Well that was how she is- small in size but never missing a chance to gossip about the big reality shows and shipping her favourite contestants.
And me, I would be sitting transfixed on the first bench with a book open infront of me observing everything and then pretending to be focused while some idiots would find their way out to me commenting 'how much I study', calling me names which my ears now had PhD in ignoring those nuisance automatically. I still clearly remember she'd come to me whenever she wanted help in studies from when is the deadline to submit the projects to boasting about how she has copied like a printing machine everything from Google and the. giving me 'the best nerd' look ever. I feel like laughing, rolling on the ground whenever I think that most of the times my hand waved up in the air, always raising higher everytime any teacher would ask questions, and they knew me so distinctly that, that would say before asking anything, " I don't want Riya to answer. Rest all are sleeping, huh?"
She'd often accuse me for not telling her the answers because unfortunately my roll number was next to hers. First time when we became classmates, I could see the delight in her gleaming eyes when she got to know that I was going to sit next to her while giving exams and I remember she came to me asking carefully, "Do you cheat in exams?". I smirked making sure to hide my laughter. She hurried her way hopping next to her girlfriends- must have got the answer behind my smiling lips. I was given way too many credits of being super smart and intelligent. Well I would not curse my clean record though. I was intelligent enough to give her wrong answers everytime and at the same time keeping up my morals that ' I'm not that reserved'. So i was not exactly on good terms with her but things are much better as compared to earlier. I barely had friends and needed someone just incase if I got absent, to update me with the notes. So I had quite a few 'friends with benefits' and I thought it would be no harm afterall she had best 'jugads' (hacks) with her. So one fine cold day, I was sitting next to her, about to give our Hindi exams when I ended up making a very profound memory with her. She might not even know that, how her subtle act would always remind me 'that she isn't that bad'.
There was still a couple of minutes left before the comencement of the exams and a few students were shuffling through their desks, some searching for their roll numbered seats, some planning on their cheating codes, some busy boasting that they didn't even know what the syllabus consisted of while some were giggling- 'Hindi exams are even exams?'. So it was biting cold and as usual I was sitting beside her and I shrugged my blazer, rubbing my cold, numb palms together hoping to tranfer some warmth into my fingertips atleast to an extent that they become firm enough to be able to write. I told her "I'm freezing. I don't know how I'm gonna write?", while my shivering little long fingers filled the student's information column of the answer sheets. She looked at me, put her pen down and grabbed my fragile right palm and started rubbing it with both her warm hands. It wasn't unusual, but that feeling of her skin rubbing against mine and that sensation of warmness which I received was - bliss. She had long nails but made sure to not prick me to bleed. I still remeber that warmth- like a cold refreshing lemonade on hot summer noon. And then she continued rubbing- I could feel my palm gradually coming back into senses and she asked me, "Name a song, I'll sing". The very first song which clicked into my brain, I blurted, "Perfect" and she continued,
"....and we were just kids
when we feeeel in lovee,
not knowing whaaaat it wass..."
Well I would have continued it but I cannot remember the further lyrics and did I tell you how divinely she sang. For a moment I literally fell into her melodious voice and we know how cool is Ed Sheeran. There was really a motherly affection as she tenderly tried to warm me up. I felt alive, really. It was not like I didn't knew how beautifully she sang, like Taylor singing 'evermore' closely as a feather in my ears- soft, but at time, when I listened so calmly filling the gaps of the cute little intimacy we shared, barely even an inch between us, I imagined her with her own babies, shouting behind them. She had a fluency with which she carried herself everywhere but that seduction ( smoothly done) I had felt in her voice was just breath taking. As she transfered a few celcius in me, I felt better, better enough to be able to write my answers. And I don't distinctly remember but we laughed about a few things, and discussed which chapters we had prepared and where we would be needing each other's help but I couldn't stop myself dreaming her with her so called boyfriend now as her husband, chiling together with their own kids, as if I could look into her future which was bright enough, I'd rather say.
"....but you heard it,
darling you look
perfect tonight....."
And you know, what she did one day? She took out a rough notebook, I looked at her and then at her nothebook blankly as she wrote alphabets randomly scattered here and there and then looked at me and told," It is the jumbled name of my boyfriend. Let's see if you are able to crack it or not?" I grinned and then glanced at the paper and just in a few seconds I decoded his surname. She looked at my proud expression and shut the notebook saying, "Okay, that's enough for you to know" and we both laughed. Little did she knew that I had already found out her boyfriend's name and now I knew whom she dated- ofcourse a well known senior he was. I literally cannot stop smiling as I'm writing this. But yeah, that day of our Hindi Exams, that memory would never ever fade. I must say. She reminded me of my ex bff who was also no less than Arijit Singh and I sort of got lost to those middle school days when she would always sing me limitless songs as we copied stuffs from the black board and that day I flipped around to look at that girl, now my ex bff, giggling among her new bffs. I was not sad, I was just brought back to the days when I enjoyed being next to her with my ears by her side, as if she was like a big giant living radio, always singing me songs. And nobody close to me would ever deny the fact that 'music' is really a big part of my life. I need it everytime to survive, when I'm crying, when I'm happy, when I'm alone, when I'm stressed, when I miss somebody's presence, when I need the urge to dance, when I need someone to sing me a lullaby and when not. To be honest someday I'll just marry a radio itself which for sure will not irritate me with its ads. But yeah, today I was reminiscing that day when I was reminiscing my younger days with a friend with benefits by my side. And still this isn't it. I still share a few more memories with her, laughing, accusing, discussing our careers, looking for books, making jokes, naming teachers, she suggesting me some cool apps for my write ups, and a few more to be counted.
Friends with benifits, aren't that bad either. You help each other and then both of you are your own seperate ways and it's good to have some. But isn't it funny like how we are stored in someone else's memory, some part of us in some way or the other not knowing but alive in someone's memory bank. And one day they'll be looking back in past and somehow happen to stumble upon you, what you shared with them and what you reminded them and then pulled back in present thinking how much things have changed. The same is with me- thinking of a person who was barely close to me but still she reminds me of my own innocence and my own ways of finding happines in the smallest way possible. Still whenever I'll meet her. I'll smile because she wasn't that bad or perhaps not at all bad, I just had/have a different perception about her.
That's it, I gotta go now coz it's 1:36 am in the morning and I'm still struggling to fix my sleeping patterns. Agh!!
;)
